Let’s equip kids with with ‘lifelong learning’ skills - Toronto Star

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On my first day of medical school, our associate dean told the class that by the time we graduated, 50 per cent of what we learned would have changed. He said that a good framework of knowledge, strong information appraisal skills, and a motivation for “lifelong learning” would help us young doctors keep up.

“Lifelong learning” is a philosophical term tossed around by high schools, colleges and universities as a way to signal that they intend to prepare students for the real world.

But do they?

The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered research and policy change at an unprecedented pace. As of writing, the COVID-19 Open Research Database has more than 130,000 scholarly articles from around the globe about the novel coronavirus. It seems that every country and every research centre is focused on tackling this pandemic.

The last few months have been filled with a great deal of media discourse surrounding the best way to contain, prevent, manage and treat the novel coronavirus. We’ve also seen an increase in credential posturing by “experts” disagreeing with the status quo and the recommendations of public health experts.

The pace at which information changes during a pandemic of a new disease is exponentially faster than what I was told I’d see happen during medical school. The work of public health experts to communicate timely, accurate information to the public is always challenging, and during an era of rapid information overload and uncertainty, experts are sometimes forced to admit that they don’t have complete answers.

This can be exceedingly frustrating to the public.

Despite having taken a number of research methodologies, statistics, critical information appraisal and public health courses during my post-secondary education, I would be lying if I didn’t admit that it’s been extraordinarily difficult to keep up with the latest around COVID-19. I can only begin to imagine how much more difficult and frustrating this might be for people without similar training.

The start of the new school year during a rapidly evolving world reveals an important shortcoming of our education systems: Canadian kids all deserve a standard, expert-driven, information appraisal and literacy curriculum.

While still important, I couldn’t tell you the last time I used my knowledge of photosynthesis or the Pythagorean theorem in adult life. But what I do know is that being able to evaluate bias, awareness of basic research design, and the ability to understand personal limitations are all skills necessary for modern life.

Once we figure out how best to deliver education safely, we must mobilize our communication experts, educators and epidemiologists to create opportunities for kids to learn information literacy in a uniform, evidence-driven, accessible way. The advances in e-learning accelerated by the pandemic could allow a well-thought-out information literacy curriculum to be delivered uniformly and frequently throughout a child’s education.

Let’s better define what we mean when we say “lifelong learning” and let’s equip our younger generation with the ability to better navigate the muddy waters of information overload.

Correction - Aug. 17, 2020: This article was edited from a previous version that misspelled the author’s surname.

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Dr. Michael Multan is an anatomical pathology resident physician at the University of British Columbia. Twitter: @MultanMichael

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Let’s equip kids with with ‘lifelong learning’ skills - Toronto Star
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